Commander-in-Chef
by Apprentice Writer
Summary: He might be a soldier, but what the king wanted, he did.


**For some reason I couldn't write the next chapter of Helmet are Hardly Heroic until I finished writing this. I had planned to wait until I finished the write it. Oh well.**

* * *

Claus was outgoing, Claus was strong. Claus was many things, but he was hardly domestic. The boy was always restless, so it surprised no one that he knew little of the house hold tasks that his mother and younger brother handled. He was more interested in caring for the sheep like his father. At least that would be a little interesting. He'd made the mistake of telling this to his mother, and he was punished for that.

For a whole week he and Lucas had to switch chores. Lucas would help their father with the sheep and Claus would help their mother keep everything clean. He learned very quickly this was difficult, ungrateful work. If they left it alone, all of them could get sick. It gave him a bit of appreciation for what his mother and brother did daily, but not nearly enough to get him to help them. The boy did love working with the animals.

There was one task, however, he would willingly volunteer himself for. Contrary to what most people thought of him, Claus found himself growing rather fond of cooking. It wasn't exciting like herding the sheep, but it was fun in its own way. There were a multitude of things he could do with each dish. He could tweak something his hated until it became something he loved. His mother was pleased with this as well.

"You're going to be an amazing chef when you're older. Maybe I'll even lend you out to the bakery. I'm sure they could use your talent," his mother had said the day that he discovered he could make carrots sweet by adding in brown sugar to the pan while cooking them.

For the first few nights that he cooked, his father would give a look that make it clear he wished Hinawa or Lucas was cooking. Lucas didn't seem to enjoy it very much either. It was only Hinawa that supported Claus's cooking skills and that was all that he needed. Day after day, he did the cooking. After the week of punishment, it was less common for him to take over the kitchen, but it still wasn't uncommon. He made dinner at least once a week. It ended up being him more often than it was ever Lucas.

Like his mother, Claus was especially good at making omelettes. They were the first thing his mother taught him to cook. How he butchered it at first. He wasted so many eggs trying to get it to look right. When he did, though, it didn't taste right. He regretted the fact it didn't taste like what his mother made, but at least she allowed him to eat the one he had made as a test.

Over time, he did learn how to copy his mother's recipe. He even added in his own twist. Nobody else liked this one as much as he did, though. Lucas claimed that it was sort of spicy. Claus liked spicy things. The twins mostly liked the same food, but Lucas would rather bland food than spicy. Besides, Lucas had the oddest thing for sharp tasting cheese. Then again, so did their father. Claus didn't like that cheese at all. As revenge for the spicy omelettes Lucas started using that cheese a lot more whenever they cooked.

Claus was glad he could make omelettes like his mother because that was the closest they would ever get to taste her omelettes again. As the boy worked on cooking up an omelette for his still shell shocked brother, he thought back to the creature that had killed their mother. He would never let that thing hurt his brother. He couldn't let it live and attack the village again. He was the strong brother. If their father couldn't hunt it down, then he would have to.

Serving up the omelette he had made on a plate, the orange haired boy looked over to his shaking twin. He placed the plate in front of his brother gently. Even little sounds like that freaked Lucas out at the moment. He'd never been brave, but Claus had never seen his brother so broken.

"Hey Luc… I made you an omelette. I even used mom's recipe." Claus gently pulled the blanket his brother had wrapped himself up in up from over Lucas' head. "I know it'll never be right, but at least it's something. While you eat, there's something I want to talk to you about…"

* * *

Cooking was not a punishment. The Commander knew punishments. He knew the burning, and the whipping, and the stripping, and the poisons… Cooking was none of those things. He couldn't allow himself to think that being asked to cook for his Master was a punishment. The soldier who had delivered the message to him called in an honor. The Commander didn't think of it as an honor, but what did he know. He was not designed to recognize things as such.

Normally the only one allowed to cook for Master Porky was Lil' Miss Marshmallow. However, something had gotten into her systems lately. She now longer seemed to be well enough together to manage such a thing. Instead, she had been reassigned to guard Master Porky's Precious Friend's Yoyo over at the Thunder Tower. She was also supposed to do some cleaning there, but the girl was in such a state that she could no longer handle anything more than one task.

Though another robot maid was being made for the king, he would need someone to cook for him at the moment. Though all soldiers were completely loyal to him, he claimed that every one of them would try to poison him. That left robots programmed never to harm the king. The Commander didn't understand why the King insisted one using robots. After all, couldn't the scientists just program them to seem loyal, but attack later? The pig king must have some reason. Nobody could ever truly understand someone like him, so nobody questioned it.

At the moment, the Commander was the only working robot. With no will of his own, he would simply follow his Master's orders. There was no way he could ever poison the pig king. There was also no way he could know how to cook. This wasn't something taught too him. He supposed that was also something the pig king had overlooked.

He entered the large kitchen Lil' Miss Marshmallow had once used to cook for their Master. He recognized the tools in this room for some reason. It seemed he did have some cooking programmed into him. The boy couldn't get a clear picture of it, though. He simply followed his instincts.

What did Master Porky like? His programming would tell him that answer. As he looked through it, he found some answers. He remembered somebody's favourite food, but whose? Someone important… Blond hair… They liked omelettes. Surely, someone like that had to be his Master. Though Porky's hair had long since gone grey, the Commander could tell from the robot copies of his Master that his original hair colour had been blond. His master was vain, so of course he would have the Commander remember him as he once was.

The masked boy went over to the massive fridge and pulled out several eggs. How much did his Master need? He remembered one of Lil' Miss Marshmallow's rants being about how the king ate three times. She had trailed off to something else after that point, but three times was the answer he needed. She must have meant three times the norm. The Commander would just have to make a very large omelette. Lucky for him the stove and pans were all oversized here.

Lil' Miss Marshmellow also said a lot about bacon. Bacon would make another good addition to the meal. The boy pulled some out from the fridge and started that up in a separate pan so it would be cooked by the time that the omelette was ready. He had to make sure this was perfect. He didn't want to be punished while for failing his duties to the king. He might be a soldier, but what the king wanted, he did.

The Commander cracked six eggs into a large mixing bowl. He began to mix them up. The boy noticed that they were mixing much faster than he had thought they would. He must be stronger than he remembered. Remembered? No, not remembered. He must have become stronger than he was when they first programmed this in. He had been updated several times since his initial awakening.

The next step was the milk. The containers had changed recently. They used to be small glass containers. Now milk came in big plastic jugs. He had to be careful about pouring in the proper amount. He put in a little more than he wanted, but was sure that the king wouldn't notice. Milk was always a variable amount anyways.

Now came the seasoning. The Commander had thought to put in something spicy, but quickly decided against it. The blond in his memories, no, programming didn't like the spicy stuff. He liked sharp cheese that made the Commander's nose wrinkle. He would add that in later with the bacon. Speaking of the bacon, it had finished cooking. The Commander removed it with his metal hand and placed it on the counter.

He gave the milk and eggs a quick whisk before pouring the mix into the pan the bacon had been in. He was sure that Master Porky would love that added favour. He took the time while it cooked to get some cheese from the fridge. He cut three small slices off of it and put it by the bacon. Remembering the bacon he quickly chopped that up. He didn't have much time before the omelette was ready to be flipped.

Chopping the bacon was his favourite part. Using a knife wasn't like using a sword, but it was close enough that he could be the master of slicing up food. Once the bacon was cut, he mixed it with the cheese and placed it on the omelette. Now for the hard part. He had to fold it. The fold had to be perfect. As someone he could not clearly picture had said, how the food looked was half the battle. If it looked nice, people assumed it was twice as tasty when they would think it was if they thought it looks ugly.

He flipped the omelette over. With that done, it was ready to transfer to a plate. He quickly remembered he had forgotten one of those. He rushed off to get one before the omelette burned. It took a moment to find one large enough for the king's supper. By the time he had, one side was slightly over cooked.

"…That side is going face down…" he said softly to nobody.

He needed more practice if he was going to be able to make an omelette worthy of his Master. For the time being, this would have to do. He was sure that it would satisfy his master. Who would not be happy if he made their favourite food? The Commander was sure that the answer was nobody. The food would be just on time too. He noted that the clock on the wall said it was three minutes until meal time.

The Commander headed to the elevator and headed up to his Master's room. It was only one floor up. His Master didn't like having his source of food very far from him. The Commander also enjoyed this, as the ride up would not be long.

When he opened his Master's room, the smell of blood hit his suddenly. It was such a shame. It seem that the king had tired of his new toy. The sight of a broken bodied boy in a striped shirt confirmed this even more. The Master had many odd habits. One was dressing up young boys he took from all over in the same outfit and forcing them to be his 'friend'. The Commander had only been subject to it once before his Master said his body was all wrong.

This sight wouldn't slow the Commander down. It just told him that his Master would be in a bad mood, if the angry grumbling and coughing didn't tip him off… It was a good thing there was an omelette coming to him to cheer him up. As always, Master Porky was waiting in his chair, lifted slightly off of the ground. The Commander didn't need to see him to know this. Normally it was harder to hear the man wheeze when he was high up.

"Where were you? You're late." His Master seemed to know he was coming before he got into sight as well. The Commander would have fled if he could. He didn't like when his Master snapped at him. It meant a punishment was coming.

"The clock said I was on time." The Commander knew he did wrong as soon as he saw his Master's face. He wasn't supposed to correct his Master. "I must have been slower than I thought."

"Stupid machine. Hurry up and give me my food." Master Porky couldn't leave his device, so he would require the Commander to come over and feed him. The Commander wondered why the Master liked forcing people to do such things so much, but he would never vocalize such thoughts.

He walked over and showed the omelette to his Master. Having never done this before, he was already working on getting a bit of the omelette on the fork by the time his Master could make a comment.

"What is that?" the old man said in a disgusted voice. The Commander was confused. Weren't omelettes his favourite food?

"It is a bacon and cheese omelette, Master." He answered anyway. If he didn't, he would be punished. It seemed a punishment was inevitable as Porky simply looked at it with disgust.

"I wanted bacon wrapped steak, you pile of strap!" Porky let out a loud stream of coughs and wheezes after that. "You're lucky I'm so hungry, or I wouldn't eat this joke you made for me."

"I apologise Master. I will make you something better tomorrow." There was nothing better than omelettes though. The Commander was sure that his Master would agree once he ate some of it.

Feeding Porky was a long and thankless job. His Master took breaks after every bite to insult his cooking or wheeze. It took over an hour to finish off the omelette. The Commander was required to run a drill with some of the Colonels soon, but the king's orders came first.

"Permission to be dismissed?" the young soldier asked once the meal was complete. The boy knew he'd be punished rather than let go free, but asking to be punished only got him hurt even worse.

"Acting like you're a good soldier now?" Porky grumbled. He wheezed once again. "What gave you the stupid idea to make me that pile of trash?"

"I… I thought you liked it." Why were omelettes in his programming? Perhaps they were something that the doctors had put in as a joke. Now he would be punished for them. He had no doubt it would be any less than the burning.

"You thought wrong!" His master had to cough after raising his voice so much. "It looks like I have another robot in needs of repair. Get Doctor Andonuts to do an adjustment on your mind."

An adjustment. The Commander's chest squeezed. Something about his Master's tone sounded wrong, like he saw this as a major flaw in his programming. He'd just had a checkup two days ago, he should have been in perfect condition, but now he needed an adjustment. They were the worst. Worse than the burning, which was worse than the stripping, which was worse than the poisons, which was worse than the whippings. Still, the Commander had no will with which to resist his orders.

"Of course, Master," he replied in the same dead tone as ever. The Commander bowed to his Master and headed out of the room. He was stopped by a few more words.

"Oh, and call someone to clean up that mess." He didn't need to confirm what the mess was. The Commander knew exactly what he was talking about. The soldier looked over to the corpse of the boy on the ground.

Until now, he had assumed the boy had natural black hair. He had faint memories of his Master using all the naturally black haired boys first. There were hardly any easy to kidnap ones left. This boy was actually blond. He could tell from the roots. His hair had been dyed black a bit ago, leaving some blond roots behind. For some reason, that hair colour made him extremely uncomfortable.

Maybe it had something to do with the blond haired omelette eating boy in his memories. Either way, the Commander could not allow himself the time to stare at the blond haired boy. As he walked away, only one word came to mind.

"Lucas…"

As soon as he said it, he tried to force the word out of his mind and failed. What an odd word. It might even have been a name. Was Lucas the blond boy? He doubted it. The Commander would not let himself think back to it. At the moment, he was more preoccupied by the thought of being sent back to the Chimera Lab for another adjustment.

"Lucas would have never made me get an adjustment."

Oh no, there was that word again. The Commander found himself getting very annoyed. He needed to stop thinking about it. He would wipe it from his mind before it was wiped away forcefully. However, he could just not stop thinking about this blond boy with the omelette. Deep down, he found he never wanted to forget Lucas at all.


End file.
